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Lot Essay
La technique picturale de Kazuo Shiraga, mise au point au Japon dans les années 1950 n’a jamais été égalée, tant au niveau artistique que spirituel. Elle s’inscrit en effet dans les recherches entreprises par le groupe Gutai, réuni autour de Jiro Yoshihara, qui développe a cette epoque une nouvelle pensée artistique prônant l’abandon des supports traditionnels de la peinture et l’utilisation du corps comme un instrument. La matière doit s’exprimer d’elle-même, comme le définit leur programme : «Quand la matière, telle quelle, démontre sa spécificité, elle commence à parler, parfois même à crier» (in P. Dagen, F. Hamon, Époque contemporaine XIXe - XXIe, Paris, 2011, p. 485). Si Shiraga choisit de peindre avec les pieds, c’est que l’usage de la main reviendrait a un excès de contrôle des habitudes de sa culture. C’est donc, suspendu a des cordes, qu’il foule la toile vierge étendue au som de ses pieds nus.
Yumeuranai est une oeuvre de maturité, réalisée toujours avec la même technique, que l’artiste maitrise parfaitement après plus de quarante ans de création. Yumeuranai signifie oniromancie, un art divinatoire inspiré par les rêves. D’épais empâtements et des couleurs tres contrastées - le jaune et le violet principalement - créent une atmosphère de tension qui caracterise cette oeuvre laissant ibre cours a des couleurs que l’artiste a rarement associees auparavant. Ce thème aborde par Shiraga rappelle la dualite entre le corps et l’esprit, une dualite que l’on retrouve entre son art qu’il exerce avec ses pieds, ou son corps entier est l’instrument d’une certaine forme d’inconscient, et la matière concrète qu’il façonne et maitrise.
The pictorial technique of Kazuo Shiraga, perfected in Japan in the 1950s, has never been equalled at neither the artistic nor spiritual level. In fact it belongs to the investigations undertaken by the Gutaï group that formed around Jiro Yoshihara, which, in this period developed new ideas about art, advocating the abandonment of traditional painting media and the use of the body as a tool. The material has to express itself, as their programme defines it: “When the material, as it is, demonstrates its distinctive character, it begins to speak, sometimes even shout.” (in P. Dagen, F. Hamon, Epoque contemporaine XIXe - XXIe, (The contemporary era 19th – 21st century) Paris, 2011, p. 485). If Shiraga chose to paint with his feet it was because using the hand would be to go back to the excessively controlled habits of his culture. So, suspended from ropes he used his bare feet to trample the blank canvas spread out beneath him.
Yumeuranai is a mature work, still made using the same technique that the artist had mastered to perfection after more than forty years of creative work. Yumeuranai means oniromancy, a form of divination inspired by dreams. Thick impasto and strongly contrasting colours – mainly yellow and purple – create an atmosphere of tension that characterises this work letting the colours run free, colours that the artist had rarely used together before. This theme tackled by Shiraga recalls the duality of mind and body, a duality found between the art he made with his feet, where his entire body is the tool of a kind of unconsciousness, and the physical material he shapes and controls.
Yumeuranai est une oeuvre de maturité, réalisée toujours avec la même technique, que l’artiste maitrise parfaitement après plus de quarante ans de création. Yumeuranai signifie oniromancie, un art divinatoire inspiré par les rêves. D’épais empâtements et des couleurs tres contrastées - le jaune et le violet principalement - créent une atmosphère de tension qui caracterise cette oeuvre laissant ibre cours a des couleurs que l’artiste a rarement associees auparavant. Ce thème aborde par Shiraga rappelle la dualite entre le corps et l’esprit, une dualite que l’on retrouve entre son art qu’il exerce avec ses pieds, ou son corps entier est l’instrument d’une certaine forme d’inconscient, et la matière concrète qu’il façonne et maitrise.
The pictorial technique of Kazuo Shiraga, perfected in Japan in the 1950s, has never been equalled at neither the artistic nor spiritual level. In fact it belongs to the investigations undertaken by the Gutaï group that formed around Jiro Yoshihara, which, in this period developed new ideas about art, advocating the abandonment of traditional painting media and the use of the body as a tool. The material has to express itself, as their programme defines it: “When the material, as it is, demonstrates its distinctive character, it begins to speak, sometimes even shout.” (in P. Dagen, F. Hamon, Epoque contemporaine XIXe - XXIe, (The contemporary era 19th – 21st century) Paris, 2011, p. 485). If Shiraga chose to paint with his feet it was because using the hand would be to go back to the excessively controlled habits of his culture. So, suspended from ropes he used his bare feet to trample the blank canvas spread out beneath him.
Yumeuranai is a mature work, still made using the same technique that the artist had mastered to perfection after more than forty years of creative work. Yumeuranai means oniromancy, a form of divination inspired by dreams. Thick impasto and strongly contrasting colours – mainly yellow and purple – create an atmosphere of tension that characterises this work letting the colours run free, colours that the artist had rarely used together before. This theme tackled by Shiraga recalls the duality of mind and body, a duality found between the art he made with his feet, where his entire body is the tool of a kind of unconsciousness, and the physical material he shapes and controls.